Wendig, aside from having written a number of novels and nonfiction books, runs a terrific blog called Terrible Minds. It is always insightful, always frank, frequently funny, and occasionally offensive. In a good way. Definitely worth checking out.

The novel can be called a dystopian future. It has been labeled “cornpunk,” which I think is a very cool term. In The Heartland, corn has become the primary crop for the entire world. It has been so genetically modified that it is like a weed, but a weed that has driven the world into a sharp division of the “haves” and “have nots.” The haves live in a giant flotilla in the sky, the Empyrean. All the other losers live on the ground, scrounging out existence while developing cancer and tumors from the toxic, malnourished soil.

Of course the young protagonist, Cael McAvoy, is one of these ground dwellers. He captains a salvage ship, scrounging out a meager life. He’s in love with Gwennie, his shipmate, but is facing Obligation Day, when the Empyrean arranges marriage for people of the proper age. Without giving away any spoilers, Cael refuses to passively accept the decrees from above, meanwhile trying to navigate the crummy time we call adolescence.

This is not a neat, tidy book. It features teens who: (1) swear, (2) have sex, (3) smoke, and (4) are mean to one another. They make the tough-guy characters of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders seem pretty tame, and they were shocking in their time. Some prudish readers out there might be dismayed. Let them be. Because guess what? These are things that real teens do. Though the setting is fictional, Wendig’s characters reflect real-life people. Above all, however, these characters reflect deep values: friendship, trust, love, and most importantly, fighting for freedom, autonomy, and equality. They’re rough people, for sure, but their hearts and minds are devoted to admirable principles.

In the numerous choices of YA novels, Under the Empyrean Sky stands out for being rough, fun, and thought-provoking. Other novels also present edgy characters, but lack the moral core present here. Still other novels are fun, but not substantive—fluff. And there are other novels that present warnings about environmental damage, too, but do so in a heavy-handed and unpalatable way. Wendig deftly creates a world that is frighteningly plausible, yet fully realized in its own, rather than just a cardboard backing for a moralizing tale. Although I am not really the target audience (too old by about fifteen years), I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and recommend it to all fans of dystopias, environmentalism, adventure, and high fructose corn syrup.